Definately a cool man cave gadget. I don't know any ladies that listen to shortwave as much. They have short wave radios that are digital but I like the old school dials. Won't have it any other way. I like to tinker for better reception on my own touch. It's not that hard to DX. If you can understand meter bands and UTC hours and Kilohertz and Megahertz, it makes following a short wave broadcasting chart more fun. Or just play with the dial until you find something you like. You want to know UTC hours because that is the hours that a station broadcast. So if they are in London, around 2400 Greenwich time, which is UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) or ZULU military time, all the same, you just calculate to your known UTC time zone. Like East Coast USA is around 0500 UTC time, so if they are broacasting at midnight, you know to check your dial at 5AM and then go to the prescribed meter band and exact kilohertz to listen to BBC for instance. You can pull all the UTC chart conversions online. Maps are a big help. World is divided into 24 time zones. It's not that complicated. I clip some wire leads to a slinky for better reception, and extend it. The better your antenna, the better the strength and the more stations you may pick up. You don't have to go technical here for a little rig like this one. I would figure in Denver up in the mountains, on a clear night, you can pick up alot of stations. Overcast, forget about good reception.